


frame the halves

by Aenqa



Category: Sly Cooper (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Episode 3, Episode 4, Explicit Language, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Police Violence, Prison, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, Violence, except not much comfort lol idk, sorry sly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22627915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aenqa/pseuds/Aenqa
Summary: they’ve always been playing the game; maintaining the charade; staying a half-step ahead in the dance.there's no charade when you're sitting 6 feet apart from each other in chains.this is no longer a game.
Relationships: Sly Cooper/Carmelita Fox
Comments: 46
Kudos: 67





	1. firewood

It’s still raining when they leave, and the drizzle plasters Carmelita’s hair to her face, her forehead, the back of her neck. She’d reach up to fix the soaking mess –

if her hands weren’t cuffed behind her.

Linked to a pitiful chain with –

It’s like her mind can’t finish the thoughts all at once. It shorts out; it doesn’t have the right circuitry to put the words in the same sentence.

Yet the cold steel digs into her wrists and hangs heavy around her neck. She’s been put in a collar as though she were a criminal. As though she had done _anything_ _wrong._

Carmelita is chained up and being arrested with Sly Cooper.

He’s walking in front of her. He has to go first, because he got beat to shit and probably has a few broken ribs and thus is currently the slowest walker, and he has to set the pace for her and his hippo accomplice, who are both chained to him and walking behind him in a depressing, single-file line. Around and in front of them, the Contessa’s guards – primarily big, hulking vultures and a few sharp-horned bulls – cut a haphazard path through the thick forest with machetes, taking down any foliage that has the misfortune of standing in the way.

Cooper stumbles and yanks Carmelita and the hippo forward, and she hisses. _“Watch it.”_

He doesn’t respond; doesn’t even turn his head. Just takes a few more uneven steps forward, his shoulders hunched, his ears pinned against his skull.

Despite herself, Carmelita notices the strangeness of his response. She had reached the jungle temple just in time to see Rajan – that insane bastard – hit Cooper so hard the crack had echoed. He had fallen – hard – and just laid there, completely vulnerable.

It was a version of Cooper she had rarely seen. The image that came to mind when she thought of him was always how he looked at the height of their exchanges; self-assured, steadfast, and entirely too capable. She had never gotten the better of him the way Rajan had in that moment. In fact, the only other time she had seen Cooper like that was – in Russia – that moment when he had appeared, out of nowhere, to release her from that cage, only to have poisonous gas start to fill the chamber. When he had hit the ground in Krakarov, choking for air, she had thought she might never see him so helpless again.

She was wrong. The Cooper that walks unsteadily before her now, weighed down by chains, stumbling over every other tree root, is in a far worse state.

Of course, when he had almost died in Krakarov, she had – well. Her emotions were _complicated_.

Now, when another misstep finally sends him to his knees, pulling her forward, she just feels rage swell up inside her.

“For fuck’s sake,” she spits as Cooper gasps for air from the ground.

“What’s going on back there?” comes that hateful voice, that grating accent, and then all of Carmelita’s anger is channeled towards a newer, purer target. Carmelita’s face twists into a sneer and she bites back dangerous insults as Neyla appears from the front of the party, surveying their sad little parade. She doesn’t need to make her life any harder than it already is with useless words, and she knows well the specific pleasure of being insulted by a newly handcuffed foe. She won’t give Neyla the satisfaction.

The tiger’s tail is curled happily, and she’s holding Cooper’s cane jauntily, inexpertly, resting across her shoulders. It’s only seeing how awkward it looks in her hands that Carmelita realizes how effortless it usually looks in Cooper’s.

“Sly can barely walk,” the hippo says from behind Carmelita. He sounds worried, scared. _Not exactly the picture of a hardened criminal._ “Please, can’t we stop for a little while?”

“We’ve only another hour to go,” Neyla says. “I think he can make it. Can’t he?”

Cooper is still hunched on his knees in the mud, one hand steadying himself on the ground, the other wrapped around his torso. Neyla twirls the cane and places the tip under Cooper’s chin, tilting it towards her, and Carmelita sees his entire body go rigid.

“On the other hand, you look _terrible,_ ” Neyla says with distinct pleasure. “Rajan really handed it to you. If only you’d seen it coming!”

“ _Fuck you,_ ” Cooper spits.

Neyla throws her head back and laughs. The sound grates against Carmelita’s every nerve. “Right, then. No need to stop. If he’s got the breath for insults, he’s got the breath to walk.” She grins as a few of the guards chuckle meanly, then tugs Cooper harshly to his feet by his collar, staring wickedly into his eyes. “If he can’t walk, he’ll be dragged.”

And she disappears again to the front of the group.

One of the guards jabs Cooper in the back, and, maybe out of pure spite, he starts walking again, even slower than before, but with his head held up, looking resolutely forward. His shoulders are set rigidly.

At least he’s not tugging on Carmelita’s chain anymore. But that’s about the extent of the credit she’ll give him. _He got himself into this mess,_ she thinks bitterly, _and he just had to drag me into it, just for the thrill, just to bring me down with him… _

She thinks again about the picture that Neyla had held up triumphantly, immortal evidence of the single most embarrassing moment of her life, the humiliation that wakes her up cold in the middle of the night. She was _inches_ from him, _touching_ him, somehow unable to recognize him, unable to see what was literally staring her in the face. Neyla hardly even needed to twist the final knife – she had already been disgraced, _violated_ , mocked by every officer who caught wind of it. It had confirmed everyone’s suspicions, all those horrible rumors about her…

The moment Cooper used her, her days at Interpol had been numbered.

And he just _had to do it,_ didn’t he. Just for _fun._ Just for _kicks._

She drills a hole into the back of Cooper’s skull with her gaze and lets those murderous thoughts carry her through the final stretch.

/\

“Separate them,” Neyla orders when they reach the transport vans, to Carmelita’s great relief. It’s dark, and starting to get cold, and Carmelita is trembling from exhaustion. Cooper looks barely conscious. “We have a long trip in front of us, and we don’t need to give them time to chat.”

“Yes, ma’am, but,” mumbles a huge, long-horned bull, “there are only two secure vans.”

“I _know_ that,” Neyla snaps. Carmelita rolls her eyes. “I _meant,_ separate _them,_ ” and she points to Cooper and the hippo. “These two can ride together.” She points to Cooper and Carmelita.

Dread pools in the bottom of Carmelita’s stomach. _Perfect._

When Neyla takes it upon herself to grab Carmelita by her handcuffs and load her into the transport van herself, Carmelita can’t hold herself back. The words practically burn off her tongue as Neyla fastens her chains to the wall.

“I swear to God, Neyla, I’m going to get you back for this. You better enjoy it while you can, because once I’m out, you’re going to wish you had never even _thought_ of crossing me. You’re going to wish you had never fucking _dared._ ”

Neyla leans close to her so that their faces are only a few inches apart, and gives Carmelita a sharp-toothed grin.

“Trust me,” she says. “I am _very much_ enjoying it.”

She gives Carmelita a little salute, and then hops off the van.

Carmelita has to bite back a scream.

A vulture shoves Cooper into the van and fastens him to the opposite wall, and the second he lets go, Cooper crumples. The guard chuckles and hops out the back, and the enormous door slides shut, and Carmelita is left alone in the dark with metal biting into her wrists and nothing but an unconscious criminal for company.

She hears the truck’s engine rumble to life and watches, through the tiny barred window at the top of Cooper’s wall, as the jungle starts to move. Slowly, she leans her head back against the cold wall of the holding cell.

She doesn’t cry. That isn't how she processes emotion.

But for a moment, she despairs. She does.

/\

_“it hurts.”_

_“i know, bud. it’s okay.”_

_it’s hard to see. but it’s warm, and the colors are familiar. gray, and dark red, and brown. but there’s pain, too. a lot of pain, pain everywhere…_

_“it hurts. i want it to stop.” his own voice sounds unfamiliar. higher-pitched. a child's voice._

_“it will.”_

_“when?”_

_“it’ll stop when it stops. listen, sly.”_

_the colors shift. he still can’t make anything out… a face, maybe, but what does it look like? a voice, but what does it sound like?_

_“you can’t always escape pain,” the voice says, and he focuses hard, tries to pin it down. “pain is a part of life. but more than that - pain deepens life. pain, sorrow, anger, grief – these are all emotions just like love, or happiness, or comfort. if you don’t feel those bad things sometimes, you’re missing out on a whole side of life that’s just as rich and meaningful as the good parts. pain is a different kind of feeling, an unfamiliar one, but it’s also an important feeling, a deep feeling, and there’s value to it, okay? the important thing to remember is that it will pass, and you’ll be better for it after.” _

_“dad, i have no idea what you’re talking about.”_

_“i know, i know,” and there’s a deep chuckle, “i’m sorry, i’m rambling. you don’t get it now, but you will when you get older.”_

_“but i am older, dad. i’m just as old as you now…”_

_is he? how can he be?_

_he thinks he hears the voice again, but he can’t tell make out the words. the colors are getting darker, and the pain is getting stronger. it’s sharp but it’s also broad, like the very air against his skin is burning him, and there’s a deep stabbing in his chest that’s stopping his_ breathing, and then the van hits a pothole and he –

sly jerks up with a gasp as his brain lights up with a jolt of agony. his chest is on fire and he gasps for air, reaching for his torso. _shit._ he curls into himself, and for a second he’s just overwhelmed. lights dance behind his eyelids and he drags in ragged breaths, cringing into himself and desperately searching for something to do, something to stop the pain…

 _it’ll stop when it stops,_ the memory of his dad’s voice says, and his breath catches in his throat. he focuses on evening his breathing and just rides out the wave of hurt.

sure enough, it ebbs eventually, and slowly, carefully, he straightens himself up. he feels out the positions that hurt the least, and searches for the source of the pain.

broken ribs. he knows that much. two? three? those motherfuckers _hurt. shit._ something is wrong with his ankle; maybe sprained. he runs a hand over his side and winces. he doesn’t have to look to feel the expanse of deep bruise that probably covers a majority of his right side. his head is throbbing, worse than his most severe hangover.

is that everything? he runs through a mental checklist. he feels handcuffs cutting into his wrists; his hands are secured in front of him. he follows the chain and sees it connected to the wall of the van. there’s no seat, or cot, or anything, just a lot of cold gray steel, and he’s sitting on the ground with his back against the wall, facing -

he stops short. 

a pair of furious brown eyes are blazing angry bullets into him from across the van.

 _the final source_. he stops himself from chuckling.

“fancy meeting you here,” he manages.

those eyes roll and look away from him. 

the van hits another bump and he sucks in a breath as the pain spikes.

this is going to be a long ride. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basically my favorite plot in sly 2 is when they all get arrested and i wanted to write a few scenes about it!  
> idk how long it'll go or if it'll "go" anywhere exactly but i'll probably have a few more chapters.  
> thanks for reading and please leave a kudos or comment if you enjoyed :)!


	2. cooperation

they make it a full day without speaking.

sly tries, a couple of times, but the silence that meets him is stony enough to cut his attempts short. so he and carmelita pass the time quietly, sleeping in uneven, mismatched bursts. it’s impossible to sleep very long; every few hours the van lurches them both awake, or the guards rouse them to toss them some small meal or to let them relieve themselves.

sly doesn’t mind the quiet at first, mostly because the majority of his brainpower is devoted towards keeping his body alive and breathing. he feels sensitive, feverish, a word he hopes remains an adjective and not a reality – because a true fever would mean infection, and an infection would mean… death? maybe? it’s not like the guards are paying them much attention, let alone providing medical care.

when he’s not sleeping, he focuses on meditating, grounding himself through the physical sensations of his body pressing against the floor and the wall. at this point, the pain is an internality, not an externality. it’s controllable, although it spikes when the van lurches or he twists the wrong way in his sleep. slowly, he gains a handle on it.

the guards are returning them to the back of the van after a bathroom break sometime into the second day when carmelita makes some kind of jumpy movement. quickly, the bull guard who was leading her shoves her roughly to the floor, snapping, “watch it, prisoner,” and pressing her against the floor. sly watches in discomfort as carmelita jerks away from his touch, hissing a muttered curse under her breath while the guard refastens her handcuffs and then leaves, closing the door securely behind him.

she pulls herself up to a sitting position, staring hatefully towards the back of the van.

sly can’t help but say something. “i can’t believe they’re actually doing this to you.”

carmelita whips her head towards him, her face suddenly furious. “oh, really?” she asks severely. “you _just can’t believe it?_ it’s not like _you_ had anything to do with it.”

sly kind of winces and holds up hands. “okay, okay.”

she turns her head away. her hair has come completely undone from its usual braid, and it hangs in messy tangles around her face. he’s seen her try and fix it a few times, but her hands are secured awkwardly as to prevent much freedom of motion, and she had eventually given up.

sly bites the inside of his lip and feels guilt flicker to life inside him, an emotion he hasn’t had much bandwidth to process until this moment. _she’s right,_ he thinks. _it’s my fault she’s here._

“hey,” he starts again, “i – i’m sorry. really. i didn’t think that –,”

“cooper,” carmelita mutters, “just shut the fuck up, okay?”

he wilts a little, and shuts the fuck up.

the van rumbles along, the tiny barred windows at the top of the walls revealing thick forest passing them by on both sides and letting in a little light from the early evening. and sly starts to take a real account of his position with a clear head for the first time. he inspects his handcuffs and is surprised to see that they’re an older, outdated model, the kind that can be picked with a paperclip. like any self-respecting criminal, he keeps one secured on in the inside of his sleeve; he’s relieved to find that it’s still there and hasn’t been knocked loose by his various falls.

sly twists his arms awkwardly to loose one of the clips from the inside of his left sleeve, hissing as he loses his grip and it falls to the ground. he leans down to pick it up and sees carmelita staring at him. he quirks his eyebrows at her and she rolls her eyes.

sly can’t reach the lock with his hands cuffed, so he opens up the paperclip with his hands and then grips it with his teeth, sharp end out, and starts to fish the lock, trying to find the catch. he probably looks like a total idiot, hunched over his hands with a clip in his teeth, but it’s worth it when it finally catches and his handcuffs spring open.

he lets out a sigh of relief and rubs his wrists, feeling the indents where the too-tight cuffs have left a mark. carmelita is still looking at him, and he lifts up the clip. “may i?”

“stay away from me,” carmelita mutters. “i don’t need to give them any more ammo.”

sly shrugs and refastens the paperclip to his sleeve, then stands, stretching carefully. the first thing he does is reach up and grab the bars of the window at the top of his wall. he pulls a few times, but they’re heavy and secure, and the pulling twinges sharp pain in his ribs, so he lets go. he walks towards the back door and runs his hands over it, feeling the tremors of motion, looking for a weak spot, a pickable lock, anything. it seems like the contessa was a little smarter in her choice of transport vehicle than she was in her choice of handcuffs. it appears impenetrable.

without a clear path to immediate escape, sly lets it rest for a moment. it’s not like he’s in the shape for a daring escape, anyway; he has to limp back to his post; his ankle is pretty much busted. but it's not like he's _not_ going to check for an easy escape. it's his basic due diligence.

sly sits cross-legged, stretching out his arms and glancing at carmelita, who is now pointedly _not_ looking at him. she looks even more uncomfortable, comparatively, with the way she has to twist to accommodate the chains.

“you know,” he tries again, “you can put these things back on in a heartbeat. they won’t be able to tell you took them off.”

she narrows her eyes. “thanks. i know how handcuffs work.”

“that’s my point. you’re the expert.”

she reflexively tries to cross her arms and _tsks_ in annoyance when the cuffs stop her. she shifts position, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit.

sly taps his fingers against his knee.

“you’ll be able to fix your hair,” he suggests.

carmelita looks up at him, her eyes wide and startled.

“sorry,” sly says quickly, feeling suddenly mortified. “that’s not my… i just saw you trying. i’ll… i’ll shut up.”

and he does, staring a hole in the floor.

a few long, silent moments later, carmelita sighs deeply.

sly looks up and sees her holding her hands out, staring straight ahead in resignation.

with a silent sigh of relief, sly scrambles to his feet and moves across the van. he kneels in front of her, retrieving his paperclip and reaching carefully for her wrists.

“let’s see here,” he mutters, turning her hands to find the lock.

the sight of her in cuffs, up close, is actually rather jarring. he sees the angry red marks where they’ve bit into her wrists and feels a low pull of guilt in his stomach. her hands are balled up into fists as he starts to fish the lock.

he can feel the tension in the air as though it were a tight rubber band pulled between them, threatening to snap.

“i bet this is the first time you’ve ever been inside one of these,” he says to try and diffuse it, focusing intently on the cuffs.

she laughs wryly, and sly sees the tension in her arms relax slightly. “of course you’d think that,” she says.

 _interesting_. “what? you were a troublemaker in school or something?” sly says. he chances a glance up at her, smirking slightly. she rolls her eyes away but doesn’t look as intensely angry as she has for the last 24 hours. “you didn’t strike me as the type.”

“it was a long time ago.”

her voice is low and close. sly’s fingers skim her wrists as he adjusts his grip on the cuffs, and he sees her shiver slightly. he avoids making eye contact again, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable. the last time they were this close to each other was in india. he has some making up to do for that.

the clip finally catches and the cuffs spring free. carmelita lets out a sigh of relief and reflexively rubs at her wrists as sly moves back, giving her some space.

“thanks,” she says grudgingly.

sly waves his hand as he sits back against his wall. “it’s nothing.”

he watches with some amusement as carmelita mirrors many of his actions from a few moments ago; she stands and stretches her arms and legs, then paces to survey the windows, the walls, the back of the truck. eventually, she returns to her side, folding her legs underneath her.

with more freedom of movement, sly chooses to lie flat, crossing his arms behind his head and elevating his bad ankle by hooking it over his other leg. he stares up and out of the window, where he sees a blue sky spotted with slowly-passing clouds.

he hasn’t really started to worry yet. his anxiety is mostly preempted with thoughts of bentley.

 _they didn’t catch bentley_. and as far as he knows, they don’t even _know_ about bentley.

and if there’s one person on the goddamned _planet_ he trusts to break him out of jail, it’s bentley.

yes, of course murray, too. but murray – if it was murray out there on his own, sly thinks he’d just start punching his way through india until he either ran out of people, or put himself in jail right along with them. bentley makes the plans, and he’s been so good in the field these days.

it’ll happen. sooner or later. sly believes it.

of course, he hates to look at anything from the inside of a barred window. and the handcuffs are going to have to go back on. and when the van jumps over yet another bump in the road, the stab of pain in his chest leaves him momentarily breathless.

_it’s temporary. everything’s temporary._

“did you know neyla was going to backstab me?” carmelita says, pulling sly out of his thoughts.

he turns his head in surprise and sees carmelita running her fingers through her hair. the tangled mess that existed a few minutes ago is partially sorted through now. she’s methodically pulling out the tangles, reassembling her braid. even as she waits for his answer, her fingers are carefully pulling and twisting her hair into place. she’s looking more like herself, even though her face is still tired and her fur is still dirty.

she is still fiercely beautiful, and sly feels a familiar twist in his chest.

“are you gonna answer or just stare at me?” carmelita asks, and sly goes slightly red, sitting up on his elbows.

“i had no idea. no. you think i would go along with that?”

carmelita shrugs slowly.

a pang of regret resonates inside him. “well, i wouldn’t, carmelita. you’re not my enemy.”

she narrows her eyes. “that’s a stupid thing to say.”

“why?” sly sits up fully and raises his palms. “it’s true. i don’t wish any harm on you.”

“i’m the one trying to stop you at every turn,” she says, abandoning her hair for a moment to cross her arms, “and you’re telling me we’re not enemies?”

“ _neyla_ is my enemy,” sly says. “ _clockwerk_ is my enemy. people who inflict harm for selfish reasons, who inflict evil for the sake of inflicting evil? those are the people i choose as my enemies. you enforce the law because you think it’s the right thing to do. i can’t fault you for that.”

“nice speech." her voice is bitter now. "but you used me in india.”

sly’s voice catches in his throat and he bites the side of his cheek. “yeah. i’m sorry.”

“ _why_ ,” she says flatly. “why, if you weren’t working with neyla.”

“i wasn’t… i wasn’t thinking. i don’t know.”

“you sabotaged my career.”

“i didn’t think about it like that.”

carmelita is obviously unsatisfied with his answers, but stops pressing him, picking up the strands of her hair and resuming her work. sly watches her for a little while longer. he feels queasy, uncertain.

he’s never seen carmelita truly hurt before. he’s certainly _never_ tried to hurt her. the closest he can think to having seen her like this would be last year… last year in krakarov. when he had seen her locked up by clockwerk, when he had started to imagine what that horrible monster could have done to her, or would do to her… it was like he had lost all inhibitions. he had sprinted right into an obvious trap.

and – if he’s honest with himself – when he was on the ground, close to passing out from poisonous gas, and had seen that clockwerk had left carmelita untouched… 

he hadn’t regretted it.

this moment is different, worse. because he can see that carmelita is truly wounded. her shoulders are hunched, her face lined and exhausted. she's been stripped of her uniform, stripped of her life, and yes, it is neyla’s fault, and no, sly would have never done it intentionally…

but he did contribute to it.

“there’s no way, carmelita,” he says, leaning forward. “you’re a good cop – maybe _the only_ good cop i’ve ever met. interpol knows you, they’re not going to just… throw you away over one picture.”

carmelita looks up at him again and sly is startled by the look in her eyes. it’s not so much anger directed at him, anymore, as it is a general fire behind her gaze, a knowing, injured blaze.

“you don’t get it,” she says softly. “contessa _is_ interpol. neyla _is_ interpol. these guards _are_ interpol. interpol has _already_ thrown me away. and i don’t have some criminal sidekick who’s going to come break me out of my cell, cooper. this is it for me.”

she drops her head. “i’ve devoted my life to my work, and this is what i get for it.”

silence stretches long, and sly feels the inadequacy of every possible response he could give as acutely in his chest as he feels his broken ribs. and then he feels something clench and resolve, and beyond any worry for himself or hope he has for bentley, his mind is set on a new goal, a new focus.

“i’m going to get you out of this, carmelita,” he says. “i swear.”

she looks at him and their eyes meet. her face is open, somehow. vulnerable.

he can tell she doesn’t believe him.

/\

The temperature is getting colder and colder they further they drive. When the sun goes down on their second day en route, Carmelita starts shivering against the cold metal of the van’s floor. She lost her jacket somewhere along the walk from the temple and is left only in her uniform trousers and button-down shirt, woefully inadequate against the sudden chill of the evening.

When the truck stops, and Cooper and Carmelita jump quickly to refasten their respective bindings, she brings it up with the guard who enters to let them know that they are stopping for the night. The guard is a scrawny, bug-eyed vulture whose shock pistol looks too big for his claws. She knows this guy. Hummer. He was in her unit on the way out, and the way he looks at her now makes her cringe. It’s condescending, unsympathetic; as if she really were no different from any other handcuffed prisoner.

“What do you want me to do about it?” he asks. “There’s no heating in the truck.”

“We need blankets. _Something.”_

“We don’t have any extra blankets.”

“Bullshit!” Carmelita yells, and Cooper raises his eyebrows at her, but she doesn’t care. She’s fed up, and the cold is settling into her bones, making her shiver. “Maybe you can pull that on some criminal who doesn’t know better, but I know how things work, Hummer. You guys have extra bedding supplies, I know you do. Do your fucking job.”

At first, Hammer balks and he starts stammering some excuse, but suddenly his gaze goes cold and he jabs his pistol against Carmelita’s shoulder. “Now listen here, Fox. You got arrested and I don’t got to listen to you. Now if I wanna get you a blanket, I will, but you better change your _tone_ when you’re _askin’_ me _._ ”

“Just because I’m a prisoner doesn’t mean I don’t have _rights,”_ Carmelita spits.

Hummer kind of snickers at that and Carmelita notices Cooper wince. “Oh, yeah?” Hummer squawks.

Carmelita feels herself running up against a brick wall and tries another angle. “You really think Contessa’s gonna be happy if we die of pneumonia back here? You wanna be the guy who made that call?”

Hummer’s eyes narrow, and he shakes his pistol dismissively at her. “It’s not that cold. Now just shut your trap. I’ll check 'n see if we got any extras.”

He disappears and shuts the door behind him, and Carmelita lets out a groan of frustration.

“What is their _problem?”_ she rages. “I’m not asking for anything that’s not standard! They’re the ones who aren’t following procedure!”

Cooper shifts, hugging his legs to his chest for a little warmth. She can practically _feel_ him choosing his words carefully and immediately resents it. “Carmelita… you have to be careful how you talk to these guys. They can pretty much get away with whatever they want.”

She glares at him. “You think I don’t know these idiots? I was ordering them around not three days ago. I know how these things work. I know what they’re supposed to be doing.”

“There's a difference between what they _should_ do and what they _will_ do. You've only seen how they treat you when you’re in charge. You don’t know what your average grunt is like to prisoners who can’t fight back. I just… want you to be careful.”

His words are strangely serious, and Carmelita takes a second take. Cooper is leaning forward slightly, his ears sort of pinned back; his forehead is furrowed, his shoulders hunched. He looks worried. _Actually_ worried. And he’s looking at her intently, as though he’s specifically worried _for her_.

It’s a startling departure from his usual incaution. She wonders if he’s seen this before.

The door slides open again and Hummer enters, holding something. Carmelita is relieved until she sees the weird smirk on his face.

“I took a look and this is all we got,” Hummer says and tosses a single standard-issue blanket onto the ground next to Cooper. “I’m sure you two can share, right?”

He turns back around and slams the door behind him.

Carmelita stares at the blanket in silence while Cooper leans his head gently against the wall and chuckles.

“Classic,” he mumbles.

Carmelita feels a hot flush of emotion and can’t tell if it’s more embarrassment or indignation. What a dehumanizing, utterly meaningless way to treat people, simply because they were in handcuffs. And how easily Hummer turned into an arbiter of punishment, as if she had never existed. As if she were never his equal…

And further: Cooper is proven right. Just to add insult to injury.

She opens her mouth to apologize, but before she can, Cooper picks up the blanket and tosses it towards her.

It lands in a heap at her feet. Carmelita blinks once, twice, in surprise, then narrows her eyes at him.

“Don’t,” she warns.

“Don’t what,” Cooper asks flatly as he arranges himself against the wall to fall asleep. They have to sleep with the cuffs on should a guard come in and discover their half-escape.

“Don’t do that,” she says again. The blanket sits at her feet like a final death blow to her pride. “You don’t have to be like that. You don’t have to protect me. Especially after I was just the one who pissed Hummer off for no reason.”

She picks up the blanket and starts to throw it to Cooper, but he sits up and holds his hand out to stop her. He looks her right in the eyes and, again, Carmelita shivers under the latent intensity in his gaze, in those bright, focused brown eyes.

“It’s not your fault that prison guards are assholes,” he says firmly. “And it’s not your fault you’re here. Anyway, I’m not that cold.”

She thinks he’s lying, because when he turns to the wall to go to sleep, he curls in on himself, crosses his arms. Carmelita looks at the blanket in her hands and rubs the rough fabric between her fingers. She looks up at Cooper's curled figure and back at the blanket.

Somewhere, deep down, she knows he didn’t mean to get her into this mess.

She still doesn’t understand _why._ She doesn’t understand why he feels worried for her. By all logic, he should be thrilled to see her like this. He should be thrilled to get back at her after years of antagonization. Or, if not malicious, she expected him to be at least apathetic. Focused on his own escape. 

And for that matter - she can't understand why he would promise to get her out – what _motive_ he could possibly have. It's futile to wonder about, anyway; he's acting as though he can actually keep that promise. Maybe he thinks escaping Interpol’s prisons is as easy as staying out of them, but Carmelita has been where they’re going, and she knows that’s not true. She knows exactly where they’re headed. And she knows she's going to be there for a long time.

There's something else, something nagging at her brain as insistently as the cold. Regardless of what _he_ feels, she knows that she should see his capture as a silver lining; that if everything has to go horribly for her, at least she can watch him get his just deserts. She had long dreamed of putting Cooper in handcuffs.

But this was no dream. And seeing him lying across from her, nursing broken bones and suppressing a shiver against the cold night air, brings her no joy. It just makes her… sad.

She doesn’t really want to interrogate that feeling any further. Doesn't want to follow it through to its natural conclusion. So Carmelita pulls the blanket around her shoulders and turns to face the wall, drifting slowly into an uneasy sleep, and trying to forget the fact that the only person in the world who seems to be on her side is Sly Cooper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes I gave Carmelita ACCURATE CLOTHING, idgaF, NO POLICE OFFICER WEARS A CROP TOP TO WORK, ok, she would also look just as good in a button down. end of story lol.
> 
> thanks for reading!! comments are love!


	3. interlude/nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! thank you all SO MUCH for your incredibly kind comments! I feel really bad that I haven't been able to update much. I'm definitely planning on continuing this. this plot line has been sort of my pet fic idea for a while now, and I have a lot of ideas I'd like to explore. 
> 
> so that being said, I don't have a full chapter ready to post, but since everyone has been so nice I wanted to post a small thing that I do have written for right now. I hope you like it and hopefully I'll see you soon with another chapter :)

They’re both asleep on their third night in the van when Cooper suddenly shoots straight up, gasping for breath and hissing a curse. It wakes Carmelita up, and she turns over, stifling a groan. Sleep still dulls her senses as she props herself up on her elbow, making everything feel sort of muffled and surreal.

“What’s wrong?”

Cooper looks around wildly for a second as though he’s forgotten where he is. “Wh --? ... oh... sorry," he mumbles. "I didn't mean to…”

“Nightmare?” Carmelita murmurs absently.

“Kind of.” He sighs and collapses on his back. She can't see his face in the dark, but she can hear the worry in his voice when he speaks. “Carmelita… did you see if Neyla got the heart?”

The heart… her sleep-addled brain starts to lurch into gear, and she has to search for the connection for a moment before she remembers the Clockwerk Heart, held in Rajan’s hoisted grip, beating perversely. Where had it gone, after everything? “I didn’t notice,” she confesses, more alert now. “I was a little preoccupied.”

“I didn’t notice either,” Cooper says, and scrubs his face with one hand. “It’s fine. It’s just going to be a pain in the ass if I literally have to _rob Interpol_ to get it back…”

Carmelita bristles instinctively, and then she remembers that she is just as far outside of Interpol’s good graces as Cooper is, and the deep well of grief that thought evokes drowns out any righteous anger she might have mustered. So she shoves the thought forcefully away and finds something else to focus on – a curiosity of hers. “Explain it to me,” she speaks into the darkness that separates them, tugging the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders. “Clockwerk. Why are you reassembling him?”

There’s a moment of shock, and then Cooper says vehemently, “I am _NOT reassembling_ him.”

“Well, what else would you be doing?” Carmelita says defensively.

“You were there in Russia. You know what I’m trying to do,” Cooper says. His voice borders on a growl. “I’m _destroying_ him, like I thought I destroyed him last time.”

“But... he _is_ destroyed,” Carmelita says. “If you want to stop him from coming back, scattering him to the ends of the earth seems like a pretty good plan to me.”

“No,” Cooper says, and he sits up now, crossing his legs. He’s not quite facing her, and somehow she can tell he’s not being sharp _towards_ her. She’s just touched a nerve, which. Alright. Fair enough. “It’s not an option.”

“Explain it to me,” she asks again.

She sees his shadowy figure take a breath and tilt his head back. The motion of the van jostles them slightly back and forth, the low whir of tires filling the air. And when he eventually speaks, it’s with great intention, as though he had rehearsed the lines, or at least thought them over before.

“I don’t think of Clockwerk as a _person,”_ he says. “I don’t. Maybe he used to be a person. Decades, or – I don’t know, centuries ago. But at some point, he lost that, and he just became a machine. He wasn’t _choosing_ to hate. He wasn’t _choosing_ to hunt and maim and kill everything in its path. It was like… an automatic process. It was just the way his wiring worked. I still remember…” but then he stops himself, and shakes his head.

Carmelita waits.

“When I heard that they were putting him in a museum – I hated that enough. But when I realized what had really happened to the parts, I could barely stomach it. Because if Clockwerk’s parts are still out there? Being used as machines? To do evil, and inflict pain? Then he might as well still be alive. And I might as well have died in Krakarov.”


	4. breaking point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things before the chapter begins:
> 
> 1\. This chapter gets pretty real! It earns its M rating! There is explicit violence, so be warned if that is not your cup of tea!  
> 2\. There is also the *SUGGESTION* of sexual violence (NOTHING explicit or graphic, and this is the closest this fic will ever get to that, but I would hate for anyone to be suddenly surprised by that). If this is something you'd rather avoid, you can skip the second section (the first section with Carmelita's POV) and still follow the plot - but again, it does not get more graphic than a general suggestion.
> 
> I really hope you enjoy the chapter! Thank you so much for reading!

/\/\

by the fourth day in the van, sly would be feeling acutely lonely if it weren’t for carmelita.

he thinks it probably shouldn’t work like that. after all, neyla almost certainly intended to punish them by putting them in the same transport van. and, sure, it was icy at first. but adversity is the mother of friendship (or something).

he knows he won’t be totally off the hook until he makes this situation right, to himself as much as to carmelita. but carmelita seems to have taken his apology as a sort of olive-branch-by-necessity, and their days pass in a no-man’s-land in between a truce and a companionship.

it’s helpful that they’re talking, anyway. they both have different insights to shed light on their… unique situation.

carmelita, for example, won’t stop talking about how strange it is that they’ve been on the road for four straight days now without so much as a paperwork stop.

“we’ve been out of the jungle for days,” she rants, pacing back and forth and gesturing in frustration. (she talks a lot with her hands, using them as emphasis and punctuation; it’s something sly’s never noticed, considering their conversations usually occur over the controlling variable of a shock pistol.) “there’s no reason for us to still be in this van. they should have called a copter, or a plane or something by now – that’s far more secure than these shitty little trailers.”

“it’s like you _want_ us not to escape,” sly jokes, though he sees an escape in the immediate future as a dead end. after days of searching, the inside of the van has betrayed the exact number of weak points as it did on the first day: zero. plus, a still-busted ankle and still-broken ribs are a poor combination for a single-handed escape. maybe carmelita could make it. but sly suspects there’s something in carmelita’s dna that prevents her from running from the police.

“no, it’s like _they’re_ trying to keep us totally off the grid,” carmelita mutters, single-minded as she continues to pace. “and these thugs don’t make me feel any better.”

she means the new shift of guards, a pack of wolves hired by the contessa. they showed up on the third day, replacing almost all of the interpol guards who came with carmelita. if there was any adherence to interpol guidelines before then, they were all thrown out the window now. sly and carmelita still get food, but it’s colder and in smaller rations than ever. they’re allowed out for bathroom breaks only a few times a day, and even then the encounters with the guards are hostile – the wolves seem prone to random acts of violence.

that’s where sly’s expertise comes in: trying to keep carmelita alive during the guards' power trips.

it’s not an easy task.

“get your filthy hands off me,” carmelita spits as a wolf slams her against the wall, twisting her arm behind her back cruelly. sly stiffens and grits his teeth at the sight, while his guard snaps his handcuffs back into place after their bathroom break.

“give it a rest, inspector, i know you like it,” the wolf sneers, shoving his shoulder against carmelita’s back. his fur is mud brown, mangy and tangled. clearly a charmer.

carmelita spits to the side. “fucking bastard, this the only way you can get girls?”

this produces an actual growl from the wolf, who throws her roughly to the ground. she lands with a grunt, her arms twisted into an uncomfortable position.

“you better shut your mouth if you know what’s good for you, bitch,” the wolf snarls, shoving a finger in her face.

“give it a rest, fletcher,” the other guard says from the open back door. “we gotta get outta here.”

fletcher growls again before storming out, slamming the door shut behind him.

as the clamor of their pit stop starts to fade and the engines start to fire back up, carmelita drops her head to her chest and sighs. she’s locked in an even worse position than usual, pinned close to the wall, her cuffs awkwardly tangled together. like sly, her fur is dirty and matted by now, its usual vivid color dulled by dust and sweat. as valiantly as she has tried to tend to her hair, it hangs limply around her face in unkempt strings. 

sly hates seeing her like this. it’s just not right. carmelita in handcuffs is a visual paradox: it seems like an illusion that will fall away at any moment, but it somehow stays true. it’s incoherent with her nature, with the fierce independence and genuine goodness and stubborn loyalty to the law that he attributes to her character.

and more than anything, he hates seeing these thugs manhandling her. they take any opportunity they can to push her around, to rough her up for no reason. it’s like they’re looking for any excuse to get their hands on her, and it makes sly’s skin crawl. and of course she defends herself, fights back. that only gives them more of an excuse. abusing power over a helpless person is just about the lowliest thing you can do, in sly’s opinion, and the contessa’s new guards do it in droves.

“it’s a lot easier if you just ignore them,” sly says to carmelita as he quickly works his cuffs open. (he can’t believe their luck that the guards haven’t caught them out of their cuffs yet, but he’s grateful for the relative freedom of movement.)

“yeah, yeah,” carmelita snaps. “are you gonna help me or what?”

sly crosses the van and crouches next to her. they’ve had this conversation before, but he can’t help but broach the subject again. “it’s not your fault. these guys are all the same,” he says as he sets to work, keeping a light grip on her wrists with his left hand as he fishes the lock with his right hand. “doesn’t matter if they’re working for interpol or the cartel. they just get off on power.”

“i’m not an idiot, cooper,” carmelita snaps as her cuffs spring loose. she pulls her hands back quickly, her shoulders hunched defensively. 

sly drops the subject, returning to his side of the wall and taking the opportunity to stretch his arms over his head, arching his back. he stretches one arm across his body, then the other, testing the tenderness of the muscles in his torso. when he finally sits, his back against the wall, carmelita is staring at him, her forehead furrowed.

“enjoying the view?” sly says with a grin.

carmelita’s eyes widen and then narrow into a glare. “don’t flatter yourself,” she snaps half-heartedly, then crosses her arms. “where does _that_ persona go when those guards get here?”

sly considers this for a moment. “you want me to… flirt with the guards?”

“ _no_!” carmelita says, going red, and then looking angry that she’s going red, which delights sly. “stop. you know what i mean.”

he does. “you mean that i don’t talk back to the guards.”

“yes,” carmelita says, looking off to the side stormily. “how do you just _take it_ like that? i know that it’s probably making it worse for me, but…” she shrugs shortly.

“i get it,” sly says, because he does. the first few times he was in cuffs, he was the same way. when the only power you have in a situation is to speak, you cling to that power. you cling to the ability to piss someone off, because it’s basically the only thing you can do. so staying quiet feels like the ultimate defeat.

but he’s felt the consequences of mouthing off too many times before, and it got bad enough when it wasn’t in some kind of unsupervised legal gray zone like they’re in right now. he has a scar that runs down the side of his left knee to prove it.

to carmelita, he just says, “maybe you think i’m exaggerating when i tell you that these guys can do whatever they want, but i’m not. i know it feels like a kick to the chest to stay quiet, but sometimes you’ve just got to let your survival instinct take charge.”

carmelita sighs and rolls her head back, rubbing her neck. “funny how your survival instinct never kicks in around me,” she mutters. 

“oh, it does. you’re just a better conversationalist.”

/\/\

Once night has fallen, the vans stop along the side of the road. Cooper and Carmelita are led to the bathrooms (where they catch a glimpse of four guards wrestling Murray back into his van) and given small meals, then told to get comfortable. They’re making camp for the night.

As Cooper and Carmelita discuss in whispers the relative benefits and dangers of removing their cuffs for the night, the guards sitting outside their door get louder and louder. After four straight days of travel, the guards seem to be taking a night off, roaring with steadily more drunken laughter and gambling with increasing ferocity.

“Not exactly a good-night lullaby,” Cooper quips after a particularly heated game ends with one guard loudly promising to remove the other’s eyes from their sockets. Carmelita snorts, then as usual, feels immediately angry with herself for it. She’s given up her grudge against Cooper so easily, stupidly easily – as though his sad, puppy-eyed little apology could have actually made up for anything – and she feels weak for it, weak for accepting his help and laughing at his jokes.

But Cooper is the only person on Earth even pretending to be on her side right now. And as much as she tells herself otherwise, she really doesn’t want to be alone right now. Not at all.

They’ve decided to keep their handcuffs on; they have no way of knowing when, or if, the guards will come in again, deprived of the warning signal that’s usually provided when the vans slow to a stop. So they curl up by their respective walls and try to get some sleep. Sleep is never easy for Carmelita these days, but strangely enough the drunken clamor outside works as a kind of white noise, and she finds herself dropping off into that familiar darkness quickly.

She’s awoken by the unmistakable sound of the van door sliding open. She props herself up on her elbow sleepily, wondering if it’s already time to leave. But two things stick out as strange right away. First, it’s quiet, scarily quiet; the night air is still, no guards preparing to leave, just the sound of distant crickets – and second, it’s still pitch black. She can barely see Cooper a few yards away from her, Cooper who is just barely starting to stir.

Carmelita pushes herself up and looks towards the door, where a dark figure leans against the frame. Something cold and heavy falls to the pit of her stomach when the figure takes a heavy step in, then one more. She can just barely see his outline against the night behind him, barely make out the tips of his ears.

It’s Fletcher, that terrible wolf from earlier. Her memory of him earlier fills in the details of the dark shape in front of her now, the mangy, matted brown fur, the jutting bones, the sharp, cold eyes. He’s taller than her, and heavy, and as he takes another step towards her, he drops an empty liquor bottle behind him. Even from a distance, she can smell the reek of alcohol and sweat on him, only growing stronger as he comes closer. 

“Ins’pector,” he slurs, baring his yellowed teeth in a smile.

 _Survival instinct._ Sudden, sharp, paralyzing. She sits up straight, presses herself back against the wall, as far away from Fletcher as her chains will allow, and says nothing.

“Is’ shame we gotta put you in jail,” Fletcher says, stumbling closer. “I heard ‘bout you, y'know. You’re s’posed to be smart. ..’n pretty, too.”

He moves heavily and stands right in front of her, towering over her. Carmelita clenches her hands into fists to stop them from trembling.

She looks at Sly, who is sitting up straight and tense. His eyes are wide and alert, his ears pinned back. They share a split second of panicked eye contact.

Her heart jolts as Fletcher suddenly grabs her wrists and yanks her up by her cuffs, shoving her against the wall and pinning her hands above her head with one paw. She struggles and tries to kick him, but he presses his full body weight against her, pinning her in place.

“Look at me when ‘m talkin’ to you,” he growls, his hot breath in her face. Carmelita winces and jerks her head away as his free paw comes up to grab her face. “You think yer so much better’n me, huh?”

“Get the fuck off of me,” Carmelita hisses, her heart pounding hard enough to break through her chest. She thrashes uselessly against his weight as Fletcher’s paw moves from her hand to her throat.

“I think you look kinda nice like this,” Fletcher jeers, too close to her face. 

_This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING –_

There’s an enormous crash, and Fletcher’s eyes go wide, and then he’s falling down and away from Carmelita in a shower of glass, and she collapses to the floor, gasping for breath and scrambling as far away from the unconscious wolf as her chains allow.

Cooper is standing over Fletcher, uncuffed, the remnants of Fletcher’s discarded liquor bottle in his hands. 

“Fuck,” Carmelita shouts, the panic rushing to her head and making her dizzy.

“Are you okay?” Cooper asks urgently, dropping the broken bottle and crouching next to her. Carmelita flinches away, shaking her head.

“Cooper --,” she gestures at the open door, where she can already hear a few voices, likely responding to the noise of Fletcher hitting the floor. “The guards. They’re gonna find --,”

 _They’re gonna find us,_ she realizes in dawning horror, _\-- they’re gonna know one of us escaped, they’re gonna know, and Fletcher will blame it on me, or he’ll come back, or – they’ll -_

“Okay,” she hears Cooper mutter, “okay,” and then he grabs her hands, breaking her out of her momentary paralysis. “You’ll be alright,” he tells her, his brown eyes serious and sincere.

And then he’s running out the door –

escaping?

 _He can’t escape,_ she thinks numbly as she hears shouts from outside, _his ankle._

She can’t move, her chains still holding her in place, but through the open door and the tiny, barred, windows, she can hear guards shouting the others awake, a few from the opposite side of the van yelling, “he’s here – he went this way!”

There’s something in her hand, where Cooper held it. She looks down and sees his little cuff-breaking pin pressed into her palm.

Cold dread wraps itself around her heart as she fastens it carefully to the inner hem of her shirt.

/\/\

when sly really doesn’t know what to do, he imagines bentley in his head, describing the situation. just putting things in bentley’s terms helps his thought process sometimes.

when fletcher comes into the van, his inner bentley says something like this:

“ _Be careful,_ Sly! I know you want to help Carmelita, but you have to make sure attacking Fletcher is worth the cost of being discovered without handcuffs! You’ll lose your chance at escape!”

 _sorry imaginary bentley, but the real bentley is my only chance at escape, anyway_ , sly thinks. and the instant fletcher puts his hands on carmelita like that, the instant he sees her go frozen and terrified, the question is no longer up for debate.

so now he’s standing over an unconscious wolf guard, and time is moving both very quickly and very slowly, like everything is underwater. and bentley is telling him that someone’s gonna pay for this.

carmelita is saying so, too. she’s panicked, and she looks like she’s trying to get as far away from fletcher as she possibly can. her eyes are wide and sort of glassy, her body tense with fear, and it wrenches something inside sly. carmelita should not feel this way. _carmelita has done nothing wrong_.

and he just can’t risk it, at this point. he can’t risk her taking the fall for another thing she didn’t do. he’s sick and tired, anyway, of watching these assholes get off on throwing her around, hurting her for sport.

fine. it’s time for a new target, then. (at this point, he says goodbye to his inner bentley, who is starting to protest a little too loudly. this is all sly.) 

before he goes, he takes out the pin from his sleeve, grabs carmelita’s hands, and presses it into her palm. he feels her flinch away from his touch at first, but then she makes eye contact with him, and there’s _something_ there. something like trust.

“you’ll be alright,” he says. promises. and he’s going.

his adrenaline-addled brain picks up a few details as he steps out of the van. it’s dark, but the moon is bright: he can just make out the outlines of guards sleeping a few yards away in the small field where they’ve made makeshift camp. about a hundred yards to his left is the road; on his right, a dense forest. billowing stormclouds, dark gray against the night sky, are starting to roll in, and a cold breeze rustles his fur. he turns towards the trees and starts to run.

for his first few strides, sly wonders if maybe he underestimated himself. maybe he does have a real chance at escape. he usually likes to tell himself (and anyone else who will listen) that sly cooper at half power is still worth ten times the average interpol goon.

but the shout of a lookout guard disrupts his laser focus. his sprained ankle hits the uneven ground the wrong way and the instant spike of pain that runs all the way up to his knee sends him stumbling. he braces his fall with an arm that sends shock waves of pain up and down his chest, leaving him breathless.

okay, yeah. shit. nevermind. ( _this is like ten percent power_ , _max,_ he justifies to himself as he struggles to stand.)

he forces himself up and manages a few more limping strides before the first guard tackles him.

from that first wave of pain he has very little control over what happens to him. he struggles against the two or three guards who have caught up with him; they grab him by the arms and drag him back towards the van. he hears the rest of the guards waking up, shouting in surprise and confusion. floodlights turn on and illuminate the night, making everything appear harsh and fluorescent.

the guards slam him against the side of the van, holding him there, his feet dangling above the ground. the impact takes his breath away and makes the metal wall of the van shudder like thunder. it mixes in with the sound of the distant storm.

and then he takes the first hit.

it’s not like it takes him by surprise, but there’s really no way to prepare himself for that blunt impact, the guard’s fist pummeling into his stomach. it’s immediate, gut-wrenching pain; he recoils away from the strike, trying to curl into himself to protect himself. he’s stopped from doing so by the guards who pin his arms against the wall as the other guards jeer and yell at him, their faces appearing stark and ghostly under the lights.

a guard strikes his ribs with a truncheon and the sick crack sly feels in his chest is so severe that he barely hears himself shout over the rush of blood in his ears and the laughter of the guards.

it dissolves from there – he’s played punching bag before, but this has to be one of the worst – they’re just everywhere, he barely gets a chance to breathe after one hit before another follows – like all the inner anger and leftover drunkenness of the contessa's hired thugs are being directed him -

he’s thrown to the ground at one point, landing hard on his shoulder, and some of the guards move to kicking, their boots driving into his back, his stomach, smashing against his still-twisted ankle –

he tries to find that place, that meditative space he’s gone to before, where the pain becomes detached from his body, something he can observe and control. but this time the pain is not an internality, it is fully external, and constant, a barrage of fists and boots. every time he starts to slip somewhere more peaceful, he is cruelly jerked back to reality. he curls into himself, trying to protect his head and his chest – he gasps for air, but each breath feels as though his lungs are being punctured by the broken and dislodged bones in his chest – the world swirls and swims around him –

he barely even registers when it finally stops.

he can’t see, can’t hear, knows nothing except for his ragged gasps and the hard ground spinning underneath him. he digs a hand into the dirt and struggles to right himself, to push himself to his knees, but he only makes it halfway before his arms give out and he hits the ground again with a short cry. before he can try again, a boot hits his back and shoves him into the dirt.

there are voices, laughter, and then hands are grabbing his wrists, wrenching his arms up in the air and dragging him across the ground. he instinctively tries to twist away but the guards grip his wrists like vices. as he’s dragged away, his head hanging forward limply, the voice of his inner Bentley is only barely audible over the static washing over his brain.

“Hold on, buddy. I’m on my way.”

god, he hopes that’s true.

/\/\

By the time the horrible noises stop, Carmelita is physically shaking. She’s hugging her legs to her chest, burying her face in her knees, her tail wrapped protectively around her. Fletcher is still knocked out on the ground, five feet away from her. The door to the van is still wide open. A storm is moving in, but all the thunder in the world can’t drown out the sounds coming from right outside the van – the cracks and thuds, and the cruel shouts of laughter –

And Cooper, crying out in pain at the worst of the strikes, his voice hoarse by the end of the whole awful affair.

She doesn’t understand, can’t understand, won’t understand. _He must have known this would happen_ , she thinks every time Cooper shouts in pain. He must have known, by trying to escape – he must have known he would fail –

 _He knew this would happen,_ her thoughts shout, and that’s what makes it all the more unfathomable. Or maybe it is fathomable. But the conclusion waiting to be drawn is something she refuses to think, refuses to let herself believe.

When figures appear at the open door, she flinches away, but they barely give her a second glance. Two guards march inside, casting long shadows from the harsh floodlights outside. In between them is a limp, silent form.

They dump Cooper unceremoniously on the ground, and he collapses completely, hitting his head against the floor as he drops. The two guards yank his hands behind his back to refasten his handcuffs, wrenching them as tight as they can possibly go. And then they pull out another pair, and they start to fasten his ankles.

Cooper’s face is turned towards Carmelita, and she stares in shock. His eyes are closed, bruises spreading across his face; blood is matting his fur to the side of his head and down his neck. His shirt is blood-stained and torn, practically falling off of his frame. She sees his chest rise and fall with breath, but only barely, in shallow, uneven gasps.

“Fletcher?” another guard exclaims as a few more enter the van. Carmelita turns her head to see a few wolves rush to their fallen comrade’s side, propping him up and shaking him awake. Fletcher blinks his eyes open blearily, looking around in confusion.

“Wha’ happened?” he slurs – _still drunk,_ Carmelita thinks in bitter disgust.

“You tell me, man,” another guard snaps. “Cooper escaped. What were you _doing_ in here?” 

Fletcher’s gaze roves over the van’s interior until he makes eye contact with Carmelita. She fights the instinct to flinch and instead forces every ounce of her anger into a fiery glare. She actually sees him gulp and then he looks at the other guards, says “I heard something ‘n came in here to check it out, then the raccoon hit me.”

He's escorted from the van as a martyr.

“Where is he?” comes a sharp British voice from the open door as Fletcher leaves, and Carmelita’s blood runs cold as Neyla strides into the van.

The tiger looks tired and pissed off, her fur sort of sticking up around her ears as though she’s literally just rolled out of bed. She’s holding Cooper’s cane, though – of course she is – probably just to piss him off. It even pisses Carmelita off, for some reason, though really anything Neyla does pisses her off.

“Wake him up,” she snaps at the wolf who dragged Cooper in. The guard grabs Cooper by the shoulders and drags him up so he’s in a kneeling position, then slaps him across the face. 

Cooper jerks awake with a gasp, and then immediately slumps forward, exhaling sharply in pain.

“That was a pretty pitiful escape attempt,” Neyla sneers, crossing her arms. Cooper’s eyes flicker towards her, and he grimaces. He looks so small, hunched on the floor in front of Neyla, clearly fighting to stay conscious.

Neyla turns to look at Carmelita, and Carmelita stays silent, doing her best to rearrange her face into a look of righteous fury rather than the terror she feels at seeing Cooper so beat to shit that he can hardly speak.

“Must be shit when your cellmate breaks out without giving you a second glance, eh?” Neyla jabs, but it’s half-hearted. She doesn’t really give a fuck about Carmelita; it’s Cooper who’s woken her up in the middle of the night, Cooper who escaped, and it’s him who she turns back to with a look of cold fury.

“How’d you get out of your cuffs?” Neyla asks Cooper.

He doesn’t respond, of course, drops his chin towards his chest and takes another shuddering breath.

Neyla takes the end of his cane and presses it against his neck, forcing him to sit up straight from his kneeling position and look towards her. When he’s facing Carmelita, she can see that his nose is badly broken and she winces.

“How?” Neyla asks again, slowly.

“You -,” a rattling cough interrupts Cooper’s sentence, and he turns his head to spit blood on the floor. “You put me in one fucking pair of cuffs, Neyla,” he says hoarsely. “You thought I wouldn’t get out?”

Though Carmelita can’t see Neyla’s face, she sees the tiger’s entire body go rigid with anger, and the slow way she removes the cane from Cooper’s neck makes Carmelita’s blood run cold.

“Fair enough,” Neyla says, venom laced through her voice. “Should’ve been more careful. I'll have to make it harder on you. Now remind me, Cooper. Do you favor your right hand or your left?”

The question seems to make the air stand still, though Carmelita’s brain won’t supply the reason for it, just sees Cooper’s shoulders go rigid, notices the guards glance at each other meaningfully.

Neyla passes the cane back and forth from hand to hand as though trying to remember what Cooper looked like holding it. “Pretty sure you held this with your right,” she muses, gripping it tightly. “Guards, give me his hands.”

“No,” Cooper shouts, his voice breaking, but the wolf closest to him has already undone his handcuffs. Carmelita watches in horror as another guard holds his left arm back while the wolf pins his right arm to the floor.

Neyla holds the cane by its sharp edge and presses the blunt end of the handle firmly against the back of Cooper’s hand. He struggles and tries to wrench it away, but he’s pinned down.

“You asked for it,” Neyla says coolly before leaning her full body weight onto the cane.

There’s a horrible _crunch,_ and then Cooper is twisting and _screaming_ as Neyla grinds his cane further into his hand, breaking bones like twigs. Eventually his breath runs out and he’s just gasping soundlessly, trying vainly to jerk his hand away.

“ _Stop_ ,” Carmelita cries, “stop, stop, Jesus _Christ,_ Neyla!”

Her words seem to break Neyla out of whatever psychopathic trance she was in, and mercifully, she does, leaning off the cane and taking it away from Cooper’s cuffed hands. She turns towards Carmelita and her face is feral and fierce, her eyes full of anger and some kind of insane glee.

“I’d do it to you, too,” she tells Carmelita breathlessly, “if I thought you had any interest at all in helping yourself.”

Behind her, Cooper’s hands are cuffed behind his back again; he gasps sharply as they close them tightly. He is still awake, somehow, though the second the guards stop supporting him, he slumps to the side.

“Inspector Neyla?” comes a sudden voice from the van door: a nervous guard clutching at his crossbow. “The Contessa wants to speak with you.”

Neyla narrows her eyes at the guard, then sighs. “I’ll be right there.”

As the guard scurries off, she turns back to consider Cooper one last time, crossing her arms and tilting her head at the raccoon as though she were evaluating her work.

“You’ll live,” she says finally, as though she’s consoling him. “Don’t worry, Cooper. You have a long life ahead of you.”

And then she laughs, and she leaves with her guards in tow. And the door slams shut and leaves them in darkness, darkness except for the beams of light cutting through the windows. And Carmelita is sitting frozen, shell-shocked, staring at Cooper’s broken body as it finally begins to rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are fuel!!! Thanks for reading!


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